REVIEW: The Last of August
The Last of August by Brittany Cavallaro
Page Count: 317 pages
Release Date: February 14, 2017
My Rating: 3/5 stars
Goodreads Synopsis:
Jamie Watson and Charlotte Holmes are looking for a winter-break reprieve after a fall semester that almost got them killed. But Charlotte isn’t the only Holmes with secrets, and the mood at her family’s Sussex estate is palpably tense. On top of everything else, Holmes and Watson could be becoming more than friends—but still, the darkness in Charlotte’s past is a wall between them. A distraction arises soon enough, because Charlotte’s beloved uncle Leander goes missing from the estate—after being oddly private about his latest assignment in a German art forgery ring. The game is afoot once again, and Charlotte is single-minded in her pursuit. Their first stop? Berlin. Their first contact? August Moriarty (formerly Charlotte’s obsession, currently believed by most to be dead), whose powerful family has been ripping off famous paintings for the last hundred years. But as they follow the gritty underground scene in Berlin to glittering art houses in Prague, Holmes and Watson begin to realize that this is a much more complicated case than a disappearance. Much more dangerous, too. What they learn might change everything they know about their families, themselves, and each other.
My Review:
Now, I should say that I LOVED the first book in this series, A Study in Charlotte. It was my first 5 star read of 2018, and I bought the rest of the series after finishing it. That said, The Last of August did, unfortunately, fall flat for me.
I think the main issue I had with the story was that almost the ENTIRE BOOK I was confused about what was happening. Like- really confused. Like - I still am not sure I understand. The overall plot was, I think, about art forgery (and I LOVE art forgery stuff - in an objective way, not in a I-Am-An-Art-Forger way) but it was thrown together with SO many other plot lines that I just couldn't make heads or tails of it. The ending was so confusing for me, I couldn't spoil it if I wanted to. All the characters (Except Jamie) withhold secrets and information, and since readers get the story from Jamie's point of view, the plot always had a haze of confusion hanging over it.
The characters also seemed harder to like than before. I connected to them so much in the first book - even when I didn't UNDERSTAND them, I still LIKED them. In this book, they felt fragmented. This was remedied a lot during the couple chapters from Charlotte's POV, but these chapters came so late in the book that I'd gone 2/3 of the way feeling like, "Why are you being like this?! What's going on?! Tell me what's happening!?"
HOWEVER. The entire series is so unique, and even though this one went through a bit of a sophomore slump, I still love the series and characters overall, and can't wait for my copy of the final book to arrive!